


Han

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, POV Second Person, West Wing Title Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 18:04:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The distance between your bed and Dean's is roughly eighteen inches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Han

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Laura, Nichole, Amber and Sara for handholding and betaing etc. Written for [**the West Wing title project**](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/1487052.html).

The distance between your bed and Dean's is roughly eighteen inches. You don't actually have a ruler with you (there's a tape measure in the car), but you're pretty good at eyeballing things like that, and the night table between the beds isn't that wide. There's a lamp shaped like a fish screwed to the tabletop (as if anyone would want to steal it), and a bible in the drawer next to the remote. You haven't looked, but that's what's always in the drawer. Occasionally, over the years, you've found other things shoved in there--broken crayons, forgotten toys, a handful of change that got left behind. Never anything worth taking.

You wonder in a vague, disinterested way if this is the one motel night table drawer that's different, but you don't look. Wondering keeps your mind off other things.

In the darkness, which is broken by the flare of headlights from the highway (the drapes don't close all the way, but you're used to that), you can hear Dean's steady, shallow breathing. He's not asleep either, though he's pretending. You can hear him shifting, the rustle of sheets, the creak of old springs protesting the movement.

Insomnia is an old friend--even as a kid, before you knew the truth about monsters, you hated the darkness and fought sleep. In the years since you found out, you know you must have had hundreds of nights of peaceful sleep, but all you remember is tossing and turning in the darkness, waiting for Dean and Dad to come home, to be safe, only sleeping when you could hear the sound of Dean breathing in the bed next to you, and then later, a series of roommates, Jess, and then Dean again.

You can't remember sleeping while Dean was gone. You know you must have at some point, but there are a lot of blank spaces in your memory of those four months. Ruby never spent the night and you preferred it that way, as much as you wished for the comfort of another warm body pressed up against yours.

Dean shifts again, annoyed huff of his breath added to the symphony of creaks and rustles the bed makes.

Everything else might be screwed to hell (literally), but there's a remedy for this particular problem, and you swing your legs over the side of the bed before you can stop yourself.

If you can just touch him, feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, hear the steady beat of his heart like a lullaby, everything (no, not everything, just this one thing) will be all right. You don't expect--have no right to even hope--for anything else.

"Don't." Dean's voice is low and hoarse

"Dean." The please goes unspoken, but it hangs there between you and you know he hears it.

He rolls towards you and you can see the white flash of his eyes and teeth, the tight, pained expression on his face. "I can't." You open your mouth, but before you can argue, he says, "Sammy, I _can't_."

You hate how broken he sounds; he's too young to sound so old and tired.

"Maybe you were right," you say, pushing a hand through your hair. You get up and get yourself a glass of water. Usually Dean's the one who can't sit still, but you're not sleeping and you don't think you can just lie there alone in the bed and have this conversation. You take a sip of lukewarm water. It has a sharp, metallic taste. "Maybe I am a monster. Maybe I was never meant to be saved."

You want him to contradict you, to comfort you. You think maybe some part of him wants to, too. He gives a distressed grunt, and you know you're just making it worse, but isn't that what you do?

Maybe you should just leave. It would make it easier for him, because you know he won't--can't--leave you, even though he probably should. Even though this time, it really would kill you.

You dump out the rest of the water and leave the glass on the counter next to the sink. Your mouth is already dry again, and you can still taste the remains of your cheap, minty toothpaste.

"Go to bed, Sam."

You huff a small, bitter laugh. "I can't sleep."

His groan is accompanied by the squeak and rustle of the bed as he rolls over again. "Then lie the fuck down, and pretend."

You do what he says, sliding your legs in against the sheets, which have cooled off a little since you got up. You punch your pillow and roll over onto your side facing him, the solid line of his back a wall you aren't sure you can climb. You bite back a sigh and attempt to get comfortable.

You lie awake listening to him breathe. You can't help looking at the clock, though the bright blue numbers change slowly, time stretching like taffy, and you wonder if the Trickster is around again, but you're not that lucky. That would mean you could fix things.

Dean falls asleep around three a.m., his breathing finally evening out, slow and steady and deep.

You doze, slipping in and out of nightmarish dreams full of fire and blood and pain, but you don't stay asleep long enough for any of them to take hold. They don't scare you anymore, anyway, not with reality already a thousand times worse.

The distance between your bed and Dean's is roughly eighteen inches, but it might as well be eighteen million miles. Maybe tomorrow, you'll figure out some way to close it.

*

But I am wayfaring and recently wrecked;  
I understand the cost of pulling free from what once loved you.  
"I Would Remain by Night with You" by Joanna Klink

end

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> [**Han**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_%28cultural%29) is a concept in Korean culture, attributed by some as a national cultural trait. Han denotes a collective feeling of oppression and isolation in the face of overwhelming odds. It connotes aspects of lament and unavenged injustice. Or, as Jed Bartlet says, "There is no literal English translation. It's a state of mind. Of soul, really. A sadness. A sadness so deep no tears will come. And yet still there's hope."


End file.
